


The Very Peculiar Coat

by itsalwaystheapocalypse



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Consensual Sex, Epilogue, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Public Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Shameless Smut, Smut, Spoilers, everyone has a nice time okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:20:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22973182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsalwaystheapocalypse/pseuds/itsalwaystheapocalypse
Summary: Takes place after the end of my fanfic Endurance (still ongoing) and is a sort of epilogue to that story. WARNING: the first two chapters contain hints for what happens in Endurance. The third chapter is where the smut happens, so skip to that if smut is all you're looking for. Because yes. There is smut.SUMMARY: At the celebration recognizing six months since the end of hostilities between Makt and Arnes, Kell isn't sure what to wear - but his very peculiar coat has some very definite ideas.
Relationships: Alucard Emery/Rhy Maresh, Kell Maresh/Holland Vosijk
Comments: 16
Kudos: 56





	1. The Coat

Kell Maresh wore a very peculiar coat. 

Today, he was nearly at his wits’ end with it, as it refused to take any other shape or style, no matter how often he folded and unfolded it, again and again. It always came out the same.

High-necked, Maktahn white trim on a soft pure black base fabric, with hints of red in the thread that glimmered under certain lights. A line of buttons from just below the collar nearly to the hem.

And the damn thing insisted on being so long it went to just below his  _ knees _ .

It wasn’t the colors that bothered him - the new Maktahn king was coming through the open doors to visit, and Kell had already planned to show respect for Arnes’s new cross-world ally by dressing with a deliberate reference to the growing nation in a reborn world. 

It wasn't even the cut of it - it skimmed his long, lanky body in a flattering way, emphasizing his height without making a  _ spectacle  _ of it. Not that Kell, the  _ Aven Vares  _ and one of four men and two women believed to have saved Arnes from being conquered by Makt's previous rulers, wasn't a spectacle simply by continuing to exist.

He had been looked at with a mix of fear and admiration, unease and wonder, before. Now, they looked at his single inky black eye - and bright blue one - and whispered,  _ One of those who put out the fires and saved London. _

Kell didn't bother to correct them, remind his people that he had been the one to  _ light  _ most of those fires, too. No… the people had been shown the remaining scar of the mark that had bound him to Holland's will at the Danes' behest. 

They had… forgiven him, as best they could, even if they didn't forget the death and destruction he had made with blood. 

No, the coat wasn't going to draw too much attention. What bothered him was the length, and that he kept finding… things… in the coat pockets that he knew for certain he had not put there himself.

A tiny bottle of some kind of unscented oil. A folded soft cloth. A ring, but too large for his finger, and when he figured  _ that  _ out Kell dropped it in shocked dismay and watched it roll across the floor of his room until it disappeared somewhere under the bed.

He decided then and there he would not be going after that ring. The next time he stuck his hand in a coat pocket, it came out with nothing but angry-looking lint.

Kell was still staring at the coat, dressed only in his loose undershirt and a pair of tight fawn-colored pants, trying to decide what to do with it, when there was a soft knock at his door. “Come in,” He shouted over one shoulder.

“How am  _ I _ ready before you are?” Rhy asked, tone light and breezy, stepping into the room in everything but his crown for the official celebration of the cessation of hostilities with Makt. His deep red shirt was as high-necked as the coat insisted on being, and Kell frowned down at it again as he realized its style was an echo of Rhy’s, only much, much longer in hem length and wildly different colors. “We’re running out of time. You should have been dressed half an hour ago. Usually you’re all… slouching about complaining about wanting a drink by now.”

“Trust me, I’ll get there. I’ve been… trying to decide what to wear. I guess. Or what I wear has been trying to decide  _ for me…  _ I just - nothing has been  _ right,  _ tonight…” He tried turning the coat inside and out once more, but it stayed stubbornly the same. 

Kell tossed the coat down on his bed with a groan of frustration.

Rhy had gone quiet, and Kell looked over at him to find his brother’s amber eyes warm with compassion. “You already know he’s coming, Kell. He promised to.”

“No, I know that.” Kell frowned. “That’s not what I… of course he’s coming, he’s the... the one who ended it.”

The sight of Holland’s hands built from black stone, like an obsidian statue brought to life - the sight of flat black eyes without a hint of white staring at him, with deep black veins against white skin as Holland very nearly sank under the surface - the memory of what he had  _ done  _ at the end to the twin monarchs that had held him in thrall for seven years - still made Kell shiver.

He would have done anything to never, ever see Holland look like that - like power incarnate being torn apart - ever again. And he would be uncomfortable for the rest of his days with the reality that Holland had made that choice for  _ his  _ sake. Not to save Arnesian London as it nearly burned to the ground, and not to save the Maktahn army. Not even just to kill the Danes or to free himself and Beloc. Certainly not to free Rhy.

Instead, Holland had written the worlds' most dramatic, nearly suicidal love letter to Kell.

Kell swallowed, feeling a burn of heat in his face just thinking about it. Rhy caught the flush - Kell’s easy-to-read pale skin had long been a source of all sorts of inspiration for teasing from his much darker-skinned adopted brother - and smiled at him, pouring the two of them a drink from the carafe and glasses Kell kept on the tray by his door. 

“Look at you,” Rhy said, laughing. Rhy had not laughed, much, in the first few months after their parents’ deaths, after he had taken the crown of Arnes. That he was laughing now was a sign of healing, and something, Kell thought, that the kingdom had been holding its breath waiting to hear. “You’d think  _ you  _ were the young one, being courted.”

“I’ve been more than courted, Rhy,” Kell said, picking his glass up with a thanks to take a sip. 

“Oh, yes, trust me - I can feel every second of your  _ courtship.” _

An awkward silence, between them, but it was laced with Rhy’s good humor and Kell’s overwhelming devotion. 

“Yes, well, I can feel every second of yours,” Kell said, snorting. “At least you don’t  _ loathe  _ my chosen partner in bed. How do you think it feels to know it’s  _ Alucard Emery  _ who-”

“I hated Holland just fine, thank you,” Rhy said primly. “And I still felt every time he touched you. You’ll survive my love affair just as well as I’ve survived yours.”

“Just do me a favor - don’t marry him.”

Rhy laughed again, bright and sparkling. Kell couldn’t stop the smile he twitched in return. “Why not? He’s already named King’s Consort and First Advisor.”

“It will go down in the history books like that, you know - King Rhy Maresh, barely twenty, took the throne and named his scandalous disgraced nobleman pirate lover his  _ royal advisor.  _ Alucard Emery doesn’t know the  _ first fucking thing  _ about ruling a nation.”

“First off, disgraced because of his pointlessly stupid family. Secondly,  _ privateer _ , not pirate."

"It's exactly the same!"

"Not as far as the law is concerned. Thirdly… ” Rhy shrugged easily. "He’s someone I can  _ trust,  _ Kell. I need trust, now, more than I need anything else. Father’s advisors mostly still live, and I can utilize them while Alucard and I gain our footing here. Faro and Vesk-”

“Faro has sent us more support for recovery of the city than we could have hoped for,” Kell said pointedly. “Father’s mistrust of them was only ever misplaced.”

“It’s too bad we found out the way we did.” Rhy was quiet, for a moment. “And I suppose Vesk is largely neutralized now, too. With… Cora.”

“You mean with Cora’s unsanctioned marriage giving them bigger problems than we ever could? Sure, let’s call that neutral.” Kell snorted. “She’s never been anything less than dangerous.”

Considering the second time in his life he’d ever seen the youngest daughter of Vesk had been with her standing in front of him with blazing eyes, wielding one sword and with six others in the air around her, pink dress torn and spotted red, blood-soaked bandages wrapped around her wrist, and Beloc himself just behind her…

Beloc’s eyes had been focused on Cora, and the adoration had been as clear as day even to a Kell twisted and wrapped too deeply in unwanted commands to breathe.

Cora, surrounded by a circle of swords she controlled with deadly efficiency - and Beloc, bleeding but unbroken, forgotten by the twin monarchs who had always underestimated him.

Behind them, Alucard - the most terrifying man in Arnes in that moment. Kell had met his eyes and understood not that he would have to fight the love of his brother’s life... but that there was a chance _Kell_ would be the one who did not survive the encounter intact.

“Most dangerous woman I’ve ever met,” Rhy said airily, and with evident delight, shaking Kell from his memories. “Except, of course, our illustrious pirate queen.”

“Our illustrious working employee on a privateer’s ship,” Kell said firmly. “She has to learn how to sail a damn ship before she can captain one.”

“Probably helps her motivation to know Alucard’s already promised it to her as a gift for teaching me how to stab people… and giving me a good friend when I had so few I could rely on."

Kell ignored the words - they stung, even if not meant to. _ I should have been there. _ “Between giving her a title, a guaranteed income, eventually a ship, and that very lovely hat I let her pick out in the market, she’s profited fairly handsomely from the worst six months of my life,” Kell muttered. 

“Profited, sure,” Rhy said thoughtfully. "Had an adventure, yes, but perhaps some other potential was lost." By the time Kell looked up at him with eyes narrowed, Rhy had turned away from him. “Get dressed, Kell. I need to see you downstairs in less than half an hour at this point. Just… pick something. No one will mind, whatever it is will be fine.”

“Right, nobody’s going to dare judge the  _ Aven vares,  _ especially after I burned down half of London,” Kell muttered. If he had disliked the mixed stares of awe and fear before, he especially disliked them now - when most of the awe was gone.

“That wasn’t your fault,” Rhy said gently from the doorway. “The whole point of tonight is to acknowledge that it wasn’t anyone’s fault… at least not anyone currently in power or able to grasp it. The whole point is to bring Arnes and Makt truly together. Like it or not, you and Holland Vosijk - two  _ Antari  _ from two worlds - have become our greatest symbol of that unity. That the saviors of Arnes are both impossibly cranky and hideously  _ private  _ is simply your misfortune, hm? Your cross to bear."

Kell cocked his head, confused. "My what?"

Rhy laughed. "Sorry. That's a phrase from King George's London. Lila taught it to me. It means… I don't know. Something you just have to put up with. A weight you have to carry."

"I don't want that weight."

"That is immaterial." Rhy shrugged. "We're royalty, Kell. We rarely get much choice. On top of that… you are a hero."

Kell swallowed, hard. "I was a slave. To our parents and then to him, to  _ them.  _ I did nothing heroic. I did  _ nothing worth remembering,  _ only beg Holland to do what I couldn’t-”

"Kell.” Rhy’s voice was gentle, and soft - but had all their father’s steel laced throughout and underneath it. “Stop it. You were a slave, yes, but a slave who breaks his chains is a powerful symbol to a country desperately searching for one."

_ "Holland _ broke my chains, not me."

“The chains were broken, Kell. He did not break them to save my country. He broke your chains to save  _ you.  _ That he broke them for you is a powerful symbol, too - perhaps not for Arnes, and not for Makt, but… for you. For him.” Rhy sighed, and stepped up to pat Kell on the shoulder. “It doesn’t matter how you look, to him. He will see you the same.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Kell snapped, irritated largely because he absolutely  _ was  _ worried about that. He cast his eyes back over to his coat, lying there in precisely the same shade, shape, and style as when he’d first started thinking over how he would dress, for the evening. 

“He adores you,” Rhy said, gently, as he moved to the doorway. “He made himself a legend, for you. I know he has been exactly as nervous as you have in choosing what he will be wearing when  _ he  _ sees  _ you.” _

“At least Holland gets to choose on his own,” Kell muttered. “My coat appears hellbent on choosing  _ for  _ me.”

Rhy laughed over his shoulder. “Maybe your coat knows something you don’t,” He said, not quite teasing. “Downstairs in a half an hour, Kell, I mean it. Let’s…” He sighed. “Let’s go pretend to be king.”

“You are king, Rhy. You have been king for six months now. That crown you wear is yours.”

“Funny.” Rhy’s good cheer faltered, for just a moment - showing the insecure, uncertain boy underneath the mask he wore of the strong, handsome man. “It still feels like it belongs to our father.” Then he moved back out into the hallway and was gone, two of the King’s Own falling in behind him as he headed back for his rooms.

Father’s rooms.

It had taken Rhy three months to allow them to be cleaned out, even though traditionally the new monarch should be fully moved into them within 90 days of the last one’s passing. He’d only started sleeping in them last week - and then only with Alucard Emery by his side.

Kell stayed in the same room he’d always slept in, living in a sort of limbo. He was still  _ Aven Vares,  _ the Blessed and Cursed  _ Antari  _ prince. He was still Kell Maresh, Rhy Maresh’s older brother. He still stood with the king, and for him, and would do so until he died.

But… he was not the same Kell Maresh, at all.

He was a man changed by the choices he had made, and the people he had lost - and those he had gained, too. 

_ It doesn’t matter how you look, to him. He will see you the same. _

Kell swallowed, staring at the black coat where it lay on his bed. On the floor nearby, tall boots that would just cover his knees. The coat would fall a few inches below them… He could have sworn the coat seemed like it was staring _ back  _ at him. His eyes roamed his own room, as a thought came to him, the slightest little hint of  _ what if I... _

Scandalous. Something Holland would never expect.

He walked over to pick up the soft cloth again, rubbing his thumb against it, then checked the lining. It felt like  _ silk  _ in there, and when his fingers found a button, he frowned, and pulled the collar so he could peer inside. When he saw the extra panels of fabric that buttoned flat and invisible but would allow the coat to offer greater movement, if he needed it… 

The idea, hazy and unformed, became suddenly a perfectly detailed portrait of something he absolutely should not do.

Kell felt a smile slowly widening on his face.

“Will you see me the same, like  _ this?”  _ He asked, softly, and pulled his undershirt off over his head. The scar on his chest remained the same, the mark he and Rhy shared over their hearts. There were newer, deeper scars, too, from Athos Dane and from the Battle of Red London. His back was a riot of scarred skin from Athos Dane’s whip, his shoulders marked with Astrid Dane’s knife.

He dropped the shirt to the floor carelessly, and stepped out of the thin fawn-colored pants he’d been wearing. He would need neither of them. 

He replaced the little bottle and the folded-up cloth into the pockets of the coat, because if this went well, he  _ would  _ be needing those.

Once he was dressed, he looked at himself in the mirror, with a smile. The length of the coat emphasized his height and while it skimmed his body, he didn’t look  _ too  _ thin. He shook his hair out and combed through it with his fingers, his  _ Antari  _ black and wide blue eyes looking back at him. A faceful of freckles, and Kell paused, to press his fingertip against a particularly dark one under the inky black eye.

Holland’s favorite, of his freckles.

Now Kell’s favorite, too.

Finally, he picked up the small crown, a twisted mixture of vines and leaves wrought from solid gold by artisans who had presented it to Rhy in the days after they began to rebuild the city.  _ For the Aven Vares,  _ they had said solemnly, and Rhy had accepted it on his behalf, telling them only that Kell was unable to leave his room just yet, and would thank them in person when he could.

No one mentioned that Kell was not  _ alone,  _ in those days he spent in his room, moving with Holland in pure freedom for the first time for them both.

Kell smiled at his own reflection, the crown settled into hair with only glints of gold. He pulled at his coat’s collar to make it sit a bit straighter, double-checked to ensure it fell far enough past the top of his boots that nothing would be visible - no hint of his plan given away.

Then he raised his chin and stepped out the door to meet his brother and Alucard Emery - and celebrate six months since Astrid and Athos Dane had met their end on the front steps of the Soner Rast, undone by the depth of Holland Vosijk’s rage and immensity of the magic that had nearly destroyed him, too.

Six months since London burned at Kell’s hand.

Six months since the Isle had risen, at the behest of a frightened untrained  _ Antari _ , to put out the fires.

Six months since the monarchs of two kingdoms in two worlds died, and a younger generation was left to try and fill the empty places with strength they did not yet know how to have.

Kell walked with his same low slouch, his hands buried deeply in his pockets, closing his fingers tightly around the little bottle of oil he’d found there. He shook off his melancholy with the image of what Holland might look like, tonight, standing behind the Maktahn king. One black eye, and one green one, and both of them focused on  _ him. _

Kell was smiling by the time he made it to the King’s bedchamber, where Rhy and Alucard were waiting for him. The expression was rare enough to make Alucard’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

Kell ignored him - it was difficult, but he did his best. 

“Shall we?” He asked, straightening his back under Rhy’s appraising stare. His brother looked him over, thoughtfully, and there was a little of Rhy’s old mischief in his sparkling amber eyes. 

“Kell, what are you going to do?” Rhy asked. “You have a… look about you. I know that look.” He paused. “Are you going to climb that tree again?”

“That was you! And Mother nearly lost her mind when you jumped!” Kell snorted.

“I knew you would catch me,” Rhy said with perfect certainty, and glanced at Alucard. The two of them were dressed to complement each other, as was proper for the Royal Consort. Alucard looked uncomfortable in the tighter clothing, his hair carefully pulled back low on his neck, the blue ring on his eyebrow sparkling in the light. “I knew he would catch me.”

“It’s my understanding,” Luc said with a shrug, “That Kell always does.”

“Sanct, Alucard,” Rhy said with a grin, going up on his toes to kiss Alucard, who gave Kell a wicked little smile before he kissed back - and chuckled when Kell winced at the feeling of those lips against his  _ own.  _

“Why couldn't we just share  _ pain,”  _ Kell muttered. “Stop it, the both of you. Let’s go.”

Alucard’s laughter was bright and cheerful as they headed for the throne room, to receive the new king of Makt.


	2. The Celebration

“The new king looks nervous,” Kell said softly. He stood with his arms behind his back, hands clasped together, to the right of Maxim’s - now Rhy’s - throne. 

On the other side, to Rhy’s left, Alucard Emery snorted. “The new king is barely old enough to grow a beard,” He said dryly. “I’d be nervous too if I were hardly out of short pants.”

“Don’t mock him,” Kell snapped, his defensiveness stronger than his self-control. “He’s suffered more for his crown than you have.” He winced - that wasn’t true, not really, but he couldn’t take the words back now.

“I suffered for Rhy’s enough,” Alucard said with an edge, and he paused. When he spoke again, his voice was gentled, just a little. “You know I would do it again, in a heartbeat.”

_ Alucard Emery, disgraced has-been noble, pirate-turned-privateer and the most powerful non-Antari magician in Arnes at that moment, tilted his head too far to the side. He gave Kell a humorless smile smeared with blood on his teeth. “I can’t kill you, or I’ll kill him,” Luc had said, in a voice like an animal’s snarl. _

_ “I can’t kill you, either,” Kell had said, as the two of them began to walk towards each other. “He would never forgive me.” _

_ “Well, this should be a very fun stalemate, then,” Luc said. He and Kell had raised their hands in unison to try and bring each other down.  _

_ “Stop!” The voice cried, and both of them turned at once- _

“I am sorry,” Kell said, keeping his eyes carefully away from Luc’s face. If he saw smugness there, at the apology, he would start throwing punches and ruin Rhy’s carefully planned gala. “For what it’s worth, Luc, I am.”

“We all are,” Luc said, in a voice that was surprisingly compassionate in return. That was Luc, though - he had the awful habit of being a very good friend when Kell needed one, and his brother’s consort was the last person in any world Kell would have wanted to give that name to.

“That’s what comes with survival, isn’t it?” Luc snorted, rubbing idly at the scars on his wrists, in thought or memory. “Those of us who are lucky enough to live get to live with our regrets.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” Kell said, softly, watching Rhy as he came to the bottom fo the dais and started walking to meet the Maktahn king halfway - all of it carefully choreographed over the months of preparations. “But we are lucky enough to live with our hopes for the future, too.”

Rhy and the Maktahn king greeted each other as friends, clasped hands and cries of friendship in the grand throne room.

“You and Holland are the reason we have one,” Luc said, looking as though he badly wished he had a wall to lean back against, uneasy in the stiffly pressed ceremonial royal clothing. 

“Holland is, not me.”

Rhy and the new Maktahn king were chatting like old friends in the center of the room, and Kell’s eyes kept roaming, looking for a familiar head of charcoal-black hair to appear, but not yet… it wasn’t time yet. 

Still, he couldn’t stop looking.

“Holland is a bastard,” Luc said flatly. “He wouldn’t have raised a hand for us if not for you. He would have freed himself and disappeared into the woods like a damn tree spirit. Don’t make yourself small,  _ Antari.” _

Kell had no answer for that. He went back to watching the show of unity between two nations, two worlds. 

The new king was short, like most Maktahn people were, and his smile was uncertain and nervous. The new king’s  _ Antari  _ stood just beside him, even shorter. He wore no eyepatch now, and instead had a false eye - a gift from Arnesian craftsmen, a solid black stone that would still make it clear what he was.

The  _ Antari  _ were no longer property, legally speaking, of the throne - but it had been insisted that they never, ever hide a single hint of what they were from the people, if they were to move among the worlds with freedom.

The crowd, a mix of Arnesian and Maktahn, delegations from Vesk and Faro and other nations wound throughout, watched with hopeful optimism and a deep curiosity. Few of them had seen the Maktahn king before. Kell saw plenty of whispers behind hands, as they took in a king who was barely the age of majority even in his own world, and who held the throne by the skin of his teeth and the power of an  _ Antari  _ even younger than he.

And yet… Makt had changed, when magic came back to it in full force, and there had been no real attempts for the throne. The people waited, still, with their breaths held to see if the new world would last.

As long as magic flowed openly, Kell had to hope the change would turn to permanence, and Makt would not turn on the new king.

“I hope he isn’t too worried,” Kell muttered. “He’s doing well. He  _ looks _ regal, doesn’t he?”

_ “Does _ he? He looks like a toddler in a half-cloak to me,” Luc said, rolling his eyes, looking down to pick at invisible lint on one sleeve. “Kell, only you would find a way to spend your life worrying over  _ two _ kings and not just one.”

“At least my official title isn’t related to who I sleep with,” Kell snapped. No one was looking at them, now, and he felt freer to glare in Luc’s direction.

Alucard Emery smiled serenely back at him. “I don’t mind that one bit. Ah, but it isn’t that I’m Consort that bothers you, is it? It’s that you know  _ exactly _ how good I am at earning my pretty new title. Shall we give you a nice time, later on?”

Kell groaned, crossing his arms in front of himself, glowering down as Rhy and the new king of Makt shook hands with members of the nobility, spoke to them calmly and with plenty of smiles. The new king of Makt wore the Maktahn style of royal clothing - higher-necked and with straighter lines, a half-cloak like Holland’s. His crown was heavier compared to Rhy’s, blocky, and Kell wondered how badly his neck would ache by the end of the night.

Clothing for a king raised in a world where discomfort was a given, starvation what everyone but royalty took as a simple fact of life. 

Until the doors had been opened, at the Danes’ orders. Before he and Holland had reconnected three worlds  _ permanently,  _ and a fourth lingered always on the edges. Waiting. Whispering. Wanting. 

There was a sudden hush to the crowd, and the Maktahn king stepped back and to the side, gesturing to the wide, open doorway at the other end of the hall. “May I present,” The Maktahn king said, with a heavy Common Maktahn accent and a brilliant, shining smile on his young face, “Holland Vosijk,  _ Antari  _ and savior of Arnesian and Maktahn London!”

There was pure silence, as far as Kell understood, broken only by the rushing of his own blood in his ears.

_ Let me see you, Kærlighed. _

Holland stepped into the room, through the doorway, and his eyes went first to Kell’s. Their  _ Antari  _ eyes sparked against each other, a spark that ignited a city, reconnected broken worlds, and tore down the cage that Holland had thought would follow him to his death.

Holland’s expression had been serious when he walked in, but as he and Kell stared at each other - in a room full of people who did not matter, who never would - Kell found that it felt like the room was empty of everything but the way Holland’s mouth widened into a smile.

Two men who had earned each other’s trust through blood.

His outfit was nearly an echo of Kell’s, and they both widened their eyes in surprise at the sight of each other. Holland’s style was different - a half-cloak over a shirt and pants in the Maktahn style, but his was the pure white of Kell’s trim, and there was a trim on his that was made of the deep black with hints of red that showed in the lights.

“I greet you, London,” Holland said, his own accent softer than the king’s from age and having to speak Arnesian Royal fairly regularly. Even more now, than before. “But not as a savior. I am only a man, a free  _ Antari.”  _ His eyes remained on Kell’s, and he quirked a smile. “I am no man’s slave, now.”

_ None but yours,  _ the smile said, and it was for Kell alone.

Kell felt himself step down the dais, without hesitation or waiting for the moment they had practiced again and again. This was not choreographed. He wasn’t supposed to do this, but he did it anyway.

He caught Rhy’s grin, flash of white teeth in his dark face, the way his brother had to hold back an unsurprised laugh at Kell breaking the rhythm and the routine, unable to wait a single second longer. 

He walked quickly, his boots clicking on the floor in the hushed room and the silk lining of his coat moving against his skin, every eye following him and noting the straight spine and growing smile, rare as roses in December in King George’s London.

Joy, written openly in the face of their slouching, scowling Black-Eyed Prince. 

As always, since the day he had woken bleeding and bound in Athos Dane’s torture room, Kell felt drawn to the older  _ Antari. _

Now, it wasn’t because of magic.

Still, he felt compelled.

He knew, when Holland also began to move, ignoring the two kings who watched them with indulgent smiles, that Holland Vosijk felt the compulsion, too. They met somewhere between the throne and the place they were supposed to meet, and Holland looked up at him with the slightest warm smile on his face, too.

_ “Min kæreste,”  _ Holland said, in a voice that was a low rumble.  _ “Jeg har tænkt på dig hele dagen.” _

_ “Jeg tænker aldrig på dig,”  _ Kell responded, and when they clasped hands, it was not with the quick affectionate friendliness that the Maktahn king and Rhy had used, but with a lingering, longing touch. 

“To the unity of London!” Rhy shouted, all at once, throwing one fist in the air.

“To London!” Alucard shouted from the left of the throne, and the crowd took up the cheer, a deafening roar in the room. Maktahn and Arnesian together, accents that blended and twined around each other, two kingdoms that spoke as one.

_ “Farvel til enheden i Makt og Arnes!”  _ The Maktahn king shouted next, thumping his fist over his heart, and his people took up the cheer, then. 

There was a pause, and then the Veskan delegation shouted, too.  _ “Skål för äktenskapet mellan Vesk och Makt!”  _ Their people began to cheer, too, and the loudest cheer came from a tall, willow blonde woman who had once wielded seven swords. She wore a thin crown on her own head.

The Maktahn king laughed to hear it and turned to say something to his _Antari,_ gesturing towards the ceiling. Toska rolled his eyes and shrugged, then nodded and threw up his hands.

Red sparks in the ceiling, a beautiful series of tiny starbursts, that then lit the lights strung along the ceiling until the ballroom was tinged with the same color as the sky around the Isle and the Sijlt, two rivers in two worlds that now ran vibrant, life-giving red.

The crowd continued to cheer as the musicians in the corner took up a jaunty, cheerful tune.

Kell took the moment to pull Holland closer by his cloak, leaning down to whisper against his ear. “I have something to tell you.”

“Do you?” Holland quirked a slight smile, turning his head so his nose brushed against the side of Kell’s face. “Don’t keep secrets on my account, Kell.”

Kell chuckled, and let his lips brush Holland’s earlobe as he spoke. “I’m not wearing anything underneath my coat.”

Holland went very still, and his grip on Kell’s hands went so tight it hurt. He let out a soft, shaky breath, and Kell’s heart warmed at the sound.

“You’ll make me wait all night, knowing that?” Holland asked, his own voice pitched low as well, for only the two of them. “Will you torture me so,  _ Kæreste?”  _ The green eye and the black traveled, scanning the crowd as they stood so close together, while Rhy and the Maktahn king headed back up the dais, where a second throne had been added for the king to sit. 

“Maybe I will,” Kell said, with a flash of a smile, and pulled his hands back and away. 

He made it less than a foot before Holland grabbed at his hand again and spun him back around. Kell let out a surprised laugh, as Holland slid one hand over Kell’s waist, fingers running over the soft fabric of his coat, the other twining into his fingers and bracing their arms.

Around them, the mixed crowd of nationalities and loyalties began to pair up, and Alucard Emery stepped down the dais on cue to take Rhy’s hand and allow himself to be led in the dance, as well.

“His Royal Majesty King Rhy Maresh and the King’s Consort, Alucard Emery, will begin the dance!” 

Holland waited, his eyes on Kell’s, and the green eye burned with a fire that Kell knew very well, and he shivered nearly to his toes. “We will dance,  _ smuk mand.” _

“Are you asking?” Kell tilted his head.

Rhy and Alucard began to move, with a comfortable expertise and knowledge of each other that ran far deeper than any simple dance could prove. Kell turned his eyes to watch them, for a moment. He could see the new lines in his younger brother’s face the way that watching his kingdom burn and his parents die even as he took the crown had aged him. 

For a moment, Kell felt a pang of grief as sharp as a blade straight through his heart.  _ Mother and Father would have loved to see him stand so strong, like this.  _

“I am not commanding,” Holland said, uncommon gentleness in his voice. Well, uncommon for anyone but Kell. “If you don’t want to-”

“I do,” Kell said quickly, and with a grin he led Holland in the first few steps of the dance. “I do. But keep in mind what I said-”

“I will think of nothing else,” Holland said softly, matching Kell’s steps expertly, sliding with ease and experience into letting Kell lead the dance. 

“The inside is lined with silk,” Kell murmured, and watched Holland’s green eye flash again, dropping to his throat and then back up to his face. 

“You’ll slaughter me long before I can get you alone,” Holland said, his voice slightly strangled. 

A pause in the motion of the dance, a moment where the partners lean in to each other, and Kell bent himself down to press his forehead lightly against Holland’s, feeling already the light sheen of sweat, there. 

“I have oil in my pocket, and a cloth.” Kell slid his mouth back to Holland’s ear. “And a knife.”

Holland caught his breath and missed a step, stumbling into Kell. The older man looked at him with a stricken expression, like a man given a body blow. A strange intensity lit him, and the air crackled with easy magic around them both. 

Holland’s eyes roamed the room, took in every corner of it, the crowd of dancers and those who stood against the wall. The kings of Arnes and Makt, dancing with their named consort and betrothed respectively - the crowd - the thrones that had been set side by side now - the line of greenery and plants that had been brought in great planters through the doors and from the woods outside London, so that there was a mix of plants from both worlds…

Holland’s eyes lit on something, and then moved back to Kell. 

He smiled, and Kell felt his knees go weak.

“Then we need not wait to use them,” Holland said firmly, and pulled Kell by his hand across the room, heedless of the music, the dancers, or Rhy’s indulgent, unsurprised smile aimed at their backs as they went.


	3. Du er Mit Hjem

There is a very unique sensation to being bodily picked up and pushed against a wall by someone shorter and stronger than you are. Kell had felt it a few times in his life, with the mark on his back burning obedience into him long after he’d stopped even wanting to fight the commands - and now it was with nothing in him but will and _want._

“Match force with will,” Kell whispered against Holland’s mouth, and the older man laughed, a deep rumble of sound Kell felt nearly vibrating through him in all the spots they were touching, before his mouth dropped down to Kell’s neck, a trail of kisses from jaw to pulse point, flicking his tongue out there until Kell groaned and tightened the arms around Holland’s neck.

“You had both, in the end,” Holland murmured into his ear, and bit his earlobe. Kell had to bite his lower lip to stifle back the moan that wanted to make its way out of him, feeling his hips move unconsciously to press himself forward, already hard enough to feel the heavy heat between his legs.

“I h-had, _ah,_ had _you,”_ Kell managed, and Holland laughed again. _Sanct,_ he had dreamed about that laugh - one he’d so rarely heard - so many times. When Holland came on his own monthly errands to the Arnesian court and Kell managed to catch him off-guard enough to bring a hint of humor out of a man who had seemed carved from lifeless stone, except for the pain that hid behind his empty eyes… 

Rhy had been right; he’d always wanted Holland’s laugh to be for him, long before either of them had ever admitted to it.

 _“Du tænker for meget igen,”_ Holland breathed into his ear. He adjusted his hold on Kell, sliding his mouth up to press into Kell’s hair, breathing in the scent of roses that followed him, lived in him. The scent of Kell’s world and his magic - where Holland smelled always of something like cedar and stone.

“I am always thinking too much,” Kell replied. Holland held him effortlessly up off the floor - he was a man crafted from muscle, shorter than Kell was thanks to a lifetime in his once-dying world, but he’d been the right hand to three monarchs now (even if he technically no longer served the new Maktahn king), and that air of something dangerous still laced every inch of his skin.

Kell had never been dangerous to a single person except on Maxim’s orders before he’d been trapped in Holland’s commands, felt the weight of the carving heavy in the back of his mind. Before Holland had told him to light a city aflame and Kell had screamed with not hatred, but a terrible unwanted love.

 _“Hold op med at tænke,”_ Holland said softly. “Stop thinking, Kell. You think too much, always.”

“And you don’t?”

Holland paused, and then he pressed Kell a little harder into the wall at his back. “I am learning, now,” He said, in an oddly gentle voice, “To live in my body and not my mind.”

“I’d love to know what that’s like,” Kell said, softly. “I’ve always lived in my head more than anywhere else.”

“Then stop thinking, _min kæreste,_ and let me fuck _de tanker ud af dig.”_

It was Kell’s turn to laugh, now, and Holland’s green eye sparkled with good humor as his mouth made its way back to meet Kell’s again. Their words were soft, half-whispered, but no one was looking their way. The corner they were in was dark and shadowed, as much from Holland’s will as from the array of plants that had been placed there as a kind of decor.

No one could see them, or maybe they _could,_ and Kell was simply beyond caring. 

Kell wrapped his legs around Holland’s waist, feeling the older man hold his weight nearly effortlessly. He’d braced his back against the wall and he felt pressed between Holland’s flush of warmth and life - and Sanct, how good it felt to have Holland’s skin be not lukewarm but _hot_ under his hands, his mouth - and the cool stone at his back. The shift of the silken lining of his coat against his skin was driving him mad, Holland pressing against him moving it across his chest in ways that sent jolts of heat and pleasure straight to his already-hard cock, and the silk lining was wreaking havoc with _that_ part of him, too.

He shouldn’t do this.

“If we get caught, this was all your idea,” Kell whispered. Balanced only by his legs around Holland’s waist and his back against the wall, he felt like someone else. Someone who did things without thinking, who sought pleasure with total abandon.

He felt daring, irresponsible, and reckless.

He felt like _Rhy._

Holland laughed, hands hands firm against Kell’s back, holding him up with nearly effortless strength. His lips closed around Kell’s earlobe and bit down, and Kell felt his hips move, his head tipping back against the wall.

When he spoke, his voice was low, not quite a whisper, laced with his soft, nearly singsong accent. Charcoal-colored hair brushed against Kell’s cheek at the same moment pale lips found his throat again.

“We both know, _kæreste_ , that you didn’t wear a coat with nothing underneath it because you thought it would help with _diplomacy.”_

Kell laughed, looking with half-lidded eyes at the hint of the dancing crowd he could see through the greenery Rhy had had placed just so in every corner of the grand glass ballroom. No one looked their way, and even if they did, they were by no means the only people finding dark corners by now.

Still, he shivered at the idea of too many eyes turned their way. The shiver wasn’t entirely one of fear.

One loose button and the reality of his outfit would be laid bare - Kell felt an inward groan at the pun - to the crowd. The _Aven Vares_ , the blessed and cursed Prince of Arnes, naked as he’d been at birth in the middle of them all, rutting against the former royal _Antari_ of Makt like a man at his wedding night rather than a dignified royal celebrating the end of hostilities.

He had acted without thinking himself in circles only a few times in his life, and nearly all of them had ended up with someone getting nearly killed.

To be so daring tonight, it felt…

He felt _alive,_ in ways he rarely ever had.

 _“Jeg vil åbne dig for mig,”_ Holland murmured, and Kell groaned at the image that went along with the words, feeling his hips move again, rolling himself against the hard planes of Holland’s pelvis, the hint of his cock Kell could feel straining through his pants. 

“I, I had some… I already…”

“You are already ready?” Holland asked, and his breath hitched again in surprise, the look of stricken intensity that Kell loved to bring out in him. Holland Vosijk, statue made of power, reduced to speechlessness once again.

“Not… entirely, b-but, I have… the oil in my pocket. Won’t… need much.” Kell nearly panted the words, as the song changed and went suddenly louder and more boisterous. He could hear loud voices calling out to each other, and he went still and tense.

The voices weren’t worried, though, and after a moment Holland’s teeth at his neck, sucking lightly on skin he had bitten, made Kell forget the voices were anything but the background to the sparks of electricity that ran all along his skin. 

Holland shifted, taking Kell’s weight onto one arm so his other hand was free to dig through the pockets in the coat, looking for what Kell had brought along. He pulled the bottle of oil out and looked at it, laughing his deep rumbling chuckle again. “You are so _thorough,_ Kell.”

“Not my, ah, idea,” Kell said, tipping his head back against the stone, looking up at the ceiling of the ballroom above his head, swathed in shadows here but brilliant and bright and shimmering where the red lights Toska had made of magic twinkled in perfect lines that met in the center, where Rhy no doubt was-

“Oh no,” Kell whispered.

“No?” Holland looked up, green-and-black eyes meeting Kell’s blue-and-black, the strike of stone on stone that occurred whenever they looked directly at each other. “Why no?”

“N-Not… ah, I just… Rhy can _feel this-”_

Holland blinked “And?”

Kell laughed again, incredulously this time, as Holland slowly let him back down to the ground, holding him tightly until his boots were steady on the floor. “I _forgot._ We, we shouldn’t-”

 _“Vend rundt, smuk mand.”_ Holland gave the command with such absolute _affection,_ and Kell turned around before he could stop himself by thinking too much all over again, placing his palms against the cool stone that had been at his back. “Let him feel it. We feel him often enough.”

“There’s no _we_ feeling Rhy do _anything-”_ Holland hand slid, cool, up under his coat, along his bare thigh, and Kell’s voice cut off, lost to the shiver that ran through him as fingertips traced up to his hip, then over to the small of his back, exploring overheated skin thoughtfully. 

“Trust me, Kell,” Holland murmurs. “I can tell. This…” Holland’s hand slipped around his hip to the front of him. He took Kell in hand with a firm grip that made Kell’s knees go weak, and he nearly scrabbled his fingers against the wall to stay standing as he moaned, low and deep, pressing his forehead hard into the wall. “... is such a surprise, Kell. We haven’t seen each other-”

“In two months and twenty-two days,” Kell said, his voice strained and strangled, and he moaned again when Holland’s grip tightened fractionally, and his hand began to move. Kell closed his eyes, picturing what they looked like to anyone who might pass by. Kell, forehead to the wall, with Holland’s chin on his shoulder pressed up against him, the hem of his coat hiked up on one side to show a flash of pale freckled thigh above his knee-high boots, moaning wantonly like someone down by the River district. 

The image he pictured in his mind only seemed to make him feel Holland’s hand even _more,_ and he pressed himself back against the older man, feeling Holland’s own arousal, letting it drive the worry and thoughts out of his mind. 

“Too long,” Holland said softly. He pressed a kiss to the back of Kell’s neck. “I count the days, too, _kærlighed.”_

His hand slipped away from Kell and he whimpered, softly, at the loss, only to hear Holland laugh again. There was a silence, some rustling, and then Kell felt Holland’s fingers, smooth and slick, find their way to rub, just a little, where Kell had been waiting to be touched.

His coat had had the right damn idea, Kell could say that for certain, and he groaned, pushing his forehead into the wall until it was nearly painful. “Yes, _Sanct-”_

The first press of Holland’s finger into him had a hint of discomfort, but not as much as it once had, and Kell pushed back into the sensation. 

“Ah,” Holland said, sounding amused, breathing the words in his low deep voice into Kell’s ear. “You like this.”

“Of _c-course_ I do, I missed you, Sanct, _more…”_

“I missed you, too, _min kæreste,”_ Holland said, as he pushed the second finger in, moving in and out. Kell’s legs felt like jelly but he held himself up through sheer willpower, turning his head to put his cheek against the stone, now, so he could see Holland’s face, see his eyes that sparkled with warmth and light and _desire,_ just the faintest blush of red on his pale white skin.

Two fingers gradually became three, and Kell at some point stopped muffling his sounds - maybe when Holland curved his fingers just so and Kell’s body exploded in a streak of white-hot pleasure that obliterated conscious thought, shattered it apart into nothing but _more, now, please, again._

The music was loud to the point of deafening by now, the musicians playing a series of the popular dances seemingly without interruption, and no one could have heard Kell unless they were close enough to be damn well aware what was happening anyway.

Finally, Holland removed his fingers and turned Kell back around, shoving his back up against the wall, kissing him with rough lips and a tongue that found his. Kell opened his mouth for it, groaned at the sensation, the emptiness inside him, the need to be _filled._

Holland’s mouth moved, skin on skin, against his ear. Kell whimpered and bucked against him, rubbing himself against Holland, feeling the older man’s own erection press into him, still hidden inside his pants. Kell’s hands dropped to fumble at the button there.

Holland laughed again, and he’d laughed so much today and it had been so long before Kell truly heard him laugh at all. “If I combine us, can you stay silent?”

Kell lifted his chin, staring past his shoulder directly out into the crowd of diplomats, dignitaries, and what seemed like the entire aristocracy of the Arnesian empire. Dancing, and never looking at them at all. 

They were hidden from sight only by some greenery and the fact that some sort of loud disturbance had gotten everyone else’s attention on the other side of the room. Hidden by shadows that were not entirely natural. 

“I… I don’t think so,” He whispered, and he bit his lower lip as he took Holland’s cock out of his pants and felt the _heat_ of it, the silk-smooth skin against the palm of his hand. Kell slid his hand down, rolling Holland’s balls, feeling the other man nearly collapse against him with a soft gasp and another rumbling laugh. Kell felt it echo through his body in a wash of _Sanct, I want this man._

Kell bit back the noise that threatened in the back of his throat.

“Well, that’s a problem,” Holland said softly, catching Kell’s eye again. “Because I’m going to. Let’s see if your coat’s helpfulness extends to something I can use to help you keep your voice down.”

His hand found its way back into Kell’s pocket, and he pulled out the small flick-knife with a hint of surprise in his eyes. “Is this mine?”

“You stopped using it,” Kell said breathlessly, rolling his hips so their erections rubbed against each other, groaning. “Holland, if you d-don’t _do something soon,_ I’ll-”

“Patience, _Antari.”_ Holland smiled, taking his time with drawing back one of his own sleeves, then pushing Kell’s up - and the coat sleeve was just loose enough to roll to his elbow, and Kell hadn’t even noticed.

As if the coat had known exactly what would happen tonight.

“Are you ready?” Holland asked, hesitating with the blade of the knife held against his own wrist. It was a question that was never quite asked - giving Kell the ability to say _no._

“Do it,” Kell said, watching with a mouth all at once dry and watering, as Holland sliced the knife quickly across his wrist, the blood welling up immediately, a rush of magic in the air around them. Then he took Kell’s, and cut quickly and efficiently. A flash of pain, hardly anything to an _Antari._

It wasn’t until Holland raised their arms and pressed the cuts together that Kell felt the sudden spike of agony, as his magic was bled into and subsumed by Holland, roiling together with it in an awful sea.

Then Holland said, softly, “Spread your legs, _Antari Vares.”_

Kell looked back at the ceiling, let Holland pick him up entirely with one arm, felt his back once again hit the cool stone wall. He felt the slow-burning ache of their magic fighting, not quite combined yet, a sort of internal twist of the way their eyes felt when they met. 

Then the press against him, Holland’s cock just at the entrance. He waited - one second, two seconds, three - and Kell finally groaned.

“Just _fuck me-”_

“My pleasure, _Kærlighed,”_ Holland said, a tone of teasing in his lightly accented voice. “You have only to ask.”

As he thrust into him, the slow press of pressure and heat inside of Kell, Holland growled the command Kell had been waiting for. _“As Convenit,”_ Holland said, just as he filled Kell completely.

Holland clapped a hand over Kell’s mouth just as the moan became a scream. All that held him up was his legs around Holland’s waist and the press of the wall against his back.

Pleasure raced from the place where their blood met, danced and sparked as Kell groaned. Every nerve ending was lit with magic, drowning in Holland, drunk on his power. They could have opened a door right here and now, split apart worlds or combined them, but all Holland did was groan into Kell’s neck and thrust.

Sparking, perfect pleasure, an undercurrent of pain giving it an edge that made Kell want nothing more than to live like this forever. 

Another thrust, another, and Kell moved desperately against him, the world around them - the party, the dancers, the music, his brother - forgotten. 

_“Guder nedenunder, du er stram, du smuk mand.”_ Holland’s voice was a growl against Kell’s neck, nuzzling aside the high collar of his coat so he could nip at sensitive skin. _“Det er for længe siden jeg var inde i dig.”_

Kell meant to say something about how it burned, he felt like he’d been lit on fire in the best way, but when he opened his mouth what came out instead was, _“As Pyrata,_ Holland, _ah!”_

Unnoticed, the plants just to the side, hiding them from the crowd, began to smoke. Flames licked up, caught on the streamers of cloth wrapped around a column, and, still unnoticed, were suddenly dampened by a rush of water that seemed to come from nowhere in particular. Neither Kell nor Holland ever realized it happened.

Kell clung to Holland with arms and legs wrapped as tightly around him as they could go, each thrust a new spark of the pleasure that ran between them, the way their blood was bound together. He could feel Holland inside of him and felt, just as strongly, how it felt for Holland to be _enveloped,_ wrapped in tight heat. He felt the wall at his back and the cool air of the ballroom at Holland’s. He felt Holland’s mouth at his neck and the way his arms felt wrapped around the older man, the press of legs at his waist and the silk lining of his coat pressed over sensitive skin along his chest, new jolts of pleasure they shared.

He didn’t know how long it lasted, because he was stretched between his own awareness and Holland’s and time seemed to slow, to stop, around them.

 _“Jeg drømmer om at blive begravet i dig,”_ Holland groaned, his own iron-willed control over himself finally fracturing apart, the constant rhythm of thrusts becoming stronger and more scattered, as he and Kell lost themselves in each other. Each thrust, each press against the spot deep inside of him, made Kell moan, brought him closer to the edge, bit by bit.

“I, I dream about you, too, _ah_ , harder, _Sanct_ yes-” Kell was going to fall into this and never come out, and he never wanted to. He could have stayed like this forever, stretched between Holland’s hands and full of his cock, drowning in his magic. 

_“Jeg er din slave, inde i dig,”_ Holland whispered into his ear, and Kell very nearly came right then, had to bit his own lip until it hurt to stop himself, to buy himself a little more time. Just a few more thrusts, just a little longer lost in this perfect pleasure, just a little longer…

 _“Du er mit hjem,”_ Kell groaned, tightening his legs as he felt himself getting closer, tumbling along to the edge, about to tip over. “Ah, not Arnes, not-... ah, _you-”_

 _“Jeg har ikke andet hjem end dig, Kell,”_ Holland groaned, and Kell felt the pulse and jerk inside him, the burst of new heat, and the two of them came together, Kell biting hard into the side of Holland’s neck to muffle his own cries, Holland breathing out deep moans into Kell’s ear that kept Kell moving on him long after the overstimulation nearly hurt.

He didn’t care any longer, he wanted Holland inside of him until the end of time.

Finally, their thrusts slowed, and they were there against the wall, Holland laughing into Kell’s ear and Kell looking out at the crowd again, his face burning red until he realized they had still gone utterly unnoticed. Somehow, the thunderclap of pleasure had not shaken the world, the way Kell had thought it might. 

“I, ah… I would like to try that, _ah,_ again when we’re not in public,” Kell whispered.

He unwound his legs from Holland’s waist, feeling the ache in his calves from how tightly he had held on, and Holland helped him get his footing back as he settled his boots back down on the floor. There was a slow sense of Holland on the insides of his thighs, a warm sticky mess that would dry under his coat, and Kell blushed bright red under his freckles, closing his eyes at the feeling.

Holland tucked himself back into his pants, a smile on his face, arranging his outfit back the way it had been. There was no mistaking, though, the sparkle in his single green eye, the faint hint of a flush to his own face, the sheen of sweat both of them had, now. 

“I would like to try that again _in_ public,” Holland said, an edge of teasing to his tone. 

“And I’d like you to try it when your brother isn’t in the middle of a conversation with the fucking King of Vesk,” Alucard Emery said nearby, and both of them jumped, turning to look - Holland with serene apathy, and Kell with guilty irritation - at the King’s Consort.

Alucard stood with his arms crossed in front of him, one eyebrow raised, the blue stone there glittering in the light. 

“Well? Did you have fun?”

Kell rolled his sleeve down, quickly covering the already-healing place where Holland had cut to combine them. “Alucard-”

“I asked, did you have _fun?_ Because your fucking king sure did, once I got him out of the damn room while you two acted like _youths_ after drinking spice-wine in the spring.” Alucard’s annoyed expression stayed for one more moment, and then broke into a smile. “Next time you need a diversion, give us a five-minute warning, hm? I barely managed to get him bent over a chair before you were at it in earnest."

Kell wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Please don't tell me about that. And, uh, s-sorry."

“I am not sorry at all,” Holland said, and he and Emery stared each other down for a long moment of silence. “Except,” Holland added, “if the king made a spectacle of himself and I did not get to see it.”

“He didn’t, thanks to yours truly being a quick thinker used to creating distractions for reasons like this.” Alucard sighed. “Kell, go clean yourself up and get back out here. Holland Vosijk… well, _someone_ needs to fuck some fun into Rhy’s brother, I should probably thank you for it. Just time it better next time, all right?”

“Hey, wait,” Kell started, but Holland’s deep laughter interrupted him, and Kell couldn’t quite remember what he’d been mad about by the time Holland stopped laughing.

He leaned over to give Kell a kiss to his cheek, then pulled back. “I will speak to my king-”

“It’s so odd, still, to call him your king,” Kell said softly.

“It was the right decision,” Holland answered. He shrugged. “I was never meant to rule. The Someday King had to be someone who could show them that things were _already_ better - give them the symbol of a world already come to life. I could not give them that." With that, he walked away, and Kell watched him go, feeling a swirl of warmth and wanting to go after him, to have him all over again.

Again and again, for the rest of his life.

Kell wondered, idly, what Holland might think about marriage-

“Hey.” Alucard snapped fingers under his nose, breaking his train of thought, and Kell jerked his head, grabbing the hand and shoving it down.

“Don’t _do_ that, Emery.”

“Go clean up, and then go apologize to your brother.” Alucard sighed. “And next time, don’t set your brother’s carefully-chosen party decorations on _fire.”_

“What?” Kell looked where Alucard pointed, to see burned-up plants and a dangling bit of colored ribbon that was charred and black on the ends hanging off of a column it had once been wrapped around. “When did… How did that-”

“You did.”

“Did I… fix it?” He couldn’t remember, exactly, what had happened when they were lost in each other. He didn’t remember setting the fire, but…

“No. I fixed it.” Alucard paused, then ruffled Kell’s hair, laughing at the expression of irritation across the _Antari’s_ face. “You’re welcome. And don’t worry, your brother and I will make sure you _regret this_ later on tonight.”

He turned to walk away, and Kell, smashing his hair back down into something presentable, yelled after him, “Not if Holland and I don’t make _you_ regret touching my hair _first!”_

Alucard laughed. “It’s a challenge and a bet, _Aven Vares.”_

He disappeared back into the crowd, and Kell took a deep breath, ducking out of the ballroom to go find his brother and either apologize or brag.

He’d decide which on the way.

As he walked, he buried his hands into the pockets of his coat, and felt something he hadn't felt before. He frowned, feeling his face redden - how, he'd left the ring on the floor under his bed and he definitely hadn't gone looking for that... 

Then he pulled his hand out and realized it was a ring exactly as large as Holland Vosijk's left ring finger.

"Fine, _Sanct,_ I get the hint," Kell muttered.

He could have sworn the coat felt _smug_.


End file.
